Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Lawrence-based challenge to Virginia's sodomy laws overruled

In McDonald v. Com., the Virginia Court of Appeals in an opinion by Judge Haley, joined by Judge Clements and Senior Judge Overton, reject once again a constitutional challenge to Virginia's criminal statute outlawing sodomy, where the defendant relied on the Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence v. Texas, but the crime involved someone under the age of 18, which made Lawrence distinguishable.

This opinion brings to mind two points: (1) I read a Slate article the other day by Dahlia Lithwick about how Justice Kennedy drives conservatives insane, speaking of Lawrence; and (2) a while back the point was made to me that the Virginia Court of Appeals in its cases observes a wide variety of human behavior, which also seems to be true.

Howard Bashman has a link here.

No comments: